


Drunken, Naked, Bruised (...and lookin' at dudes)

by lasergirl



Category: Fake News RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-16
Updated: 2010-07-16
Packaged: 2017-10-10 15:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasergirl/pseuds/lasergirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Mild Jon/Stephen.  In my head, this story's been going on since the Election Night special.  My first TDS RPS.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Drunken, Naked, Bruised (...and lookin' at dudes)

**Author's Note:**

> Mild Jon/Stephen. In my head, this story's been going on since the Election Night special. My first TDS RPS.

  
By the time Jon gets home, the last bitter glass of whiskey - drunken in retaliation to what could only be a prophetic, apocalyptic decision - burns like acid in his stomach. He's empty, past hunger by this point, going on midnight and fumes. His last memory of food is some waxed-paper-wrapped tuna thing from the back of his fridge, snatched up in a hurry as he left to vote in the morning.

So whiskey it is then - no sense trying to delay the inevitable hangover when cheerfulness is the furthest thing from his mind.

Fuck - he surfs the couch and the cable TV, too wiped to even attempt the knot in his tie. Peter Jennings - that preternaturally preserved children's show zombie of a newscaster is reading strings of numbers from cue cards and ticker tape. And all Jon can see is Red piling up across the country. The world is falling down.

Somewhere between the first and second third of his bottle, he's watching himself in reruns, and it isn't pretty. Mississippi bans gay marriage. So do ten other free-thinking states and his hope in the country's salvation slumps. He seems to hide it well - there is that glint of quiet desperation in his eye - even the TV studio lights can't hide that.

10:04pm, November 2nd and - fuck, he can watch himself decaying on National Television.

Oh, Amerika the Great, even the sting of whiskey can't burn the terrible taste from his mouth. So sure, he could drink himself into a blind stupor instead of watching the world go down the toilet.

If Stephen were here he'd probably have the same expression on his face - but Jon knows it would be worse than his own thunderous scowl. No comfort there.

By two o'clock Jon thinks this wasn't such a great idea - if the Feds come for him, what? What does he have to show for anything? Except he's certain the Incumbent hasn't seen him as any sort of threat to Democracy - the real threat to Democracy is apparently Democracy itself. The fucking irony.

His fingers are numb, the rush of alcohol sings in his blood. The country is hurtling to destruction like Challenger.

Ah, if he could have been half the man he thought he was - galvanizing the electorate, standing up to be counted, moshing the vote or whateverthefuck the kids were calling it. He thought he was reaching out, making a difference. Opening his big mouth and….

Yeah.

Jon makes it to the bathroom before he heaves, all the pent-up bile and poisoned anger washing into the toilet with the rest of the whiskey. One hand gropes blindly to flush the whole mess away, and the other, white-knuckled, holds the whiskey bottle. Revolted, he flings the mostly-empty bottle into the bathtub where it bursts against the tub in a vaporous, glittering spray of broken glass.

Then he's on his knees, pathetic and sobbing on the bathroom floor, nausea in his throat and bottle shards in his hands, something he hadn't expected but oh, it could be such an easy way to get the whole fucking mess over with. Let the country go to hell, let the government walk all over his bloated dead body. He jabs angrily at the pale underside of his wrist, against the slithering of tendons and the faint blue pulse of his veins. But when the blood finally comes, damn it, it's red as the Heartland and there's more of it than he expected - shit - drooling across the floor tiles and catching in his clothes.

Maybe, Jon thinks, this could be the worst decision of his shortened life.

There's a ridiculously tiny hand-towel on the floor with him, and he wraps it over the welling wound, even though the blood's all over him now, thick and slippery, and he slides in it when he tries to get to his feet. Fuck, fuck. No good at all. He can picture the headlines in the morning. No, actually, he can picture the third-string story buried in section H12 a few days from now, when the funeral's announced, and Jon Stewart will go down in history as the loser who slit his own wrists over the failure of Democracy.

The numbers for Emergency drop out of his head like in a bad dream, and he dials something - he's not sure he even got it right - with dead, bloody fingers. The phone rings for eternity and then -

"Hello?"

Shit.

"Stephen, it's... it's me." Words tumble over each other and cram up into his throat and fuck, fuck, now his wrist is starting to burn, and he's piss-drunk lightheaded and -

"What's wrong? Jon?" He sounds so balanced, he would never do something this stupid. He's probably watching the results like a normal human being and not mourning the decline and fall of the empire.

"I might have done a really stupid thing just now," says Jon in a voice that seems eerily calm, "uh, could you -" things are spinning " - call an ambulance for me?" The carpet's dripping red at his feet. "Maybe quickly?"

The consolation is that everyone's at home, watching the goddamn election results on TV, and the roads aren't bad. The ambulance gets there before Stephen, but not much, so by the time Jon's cinched into the stretcher and drugged and whatever else the medics do on those ER shows, Stephen's there and he's sober and straight and looking very solemn. When he sees the weird broken trail of blood from the bathroom he goes white in the face and chokes up, and he holds Jon's hand before they wrap him up in a blanket. Jon's eyes are glassy, unfocused, but he can see Stephen's worried face hanging there in the miasma.

"Glad you came," Jon says shakily, and cracks the saddest smile Stephen's ever seen in his life. "Uh -"

"Don't say it," says Stephen, suddenly awkward in his own skin, "I don't want you proving anything. You've already proved you're an idiot."

"You think if I tell them you're my boyfriend they'll let you ride in the ambulance?"

Stephen echoes the sad smile but a part of him jumps inside, and Jon seems to see it.

"We'll talk about this later," Stephen says as the paramedics flock around to usher Jon out to the ambulance. Jon winks as he goes, eyes bright in his corpse-pale face.

'Cause maybe, Jon thinks, if he hadn't ruined the carpet it could have been a nice night to have Stephen over. He makes a mental note to address the issue, before the paramedic spikes up a vein in his other arm to put him out. And ah, for that brief second before unconsciousness there almost seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

END.

  
Questions? Comments? Feedback always appreciated.


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